From mem7c@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU Tue Nov 29 19:37:07 EST 1994 Article: 48571 of rec.gardens Newsgroups: rec.gardens From: mem7c@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Michael E. Matthews) Subject: Making Compost FAQ (long) Date: Mon, 28 Nov 1994 20:48:48 GMT Lines: 641 The following is a collection of composting advice from Jim McNelly, aka Mr. Compost. Long-time readers of rec. gardens will know him well. It is a compilation of some of his replies to various questions from this group. It contains the essentials of composting. If anyone has other of his posts saved, I would sure like to recieve them. Michael Matthews in central VA *************************** Newsgroups: rec.gardens Subject: Composting 101 From: jim.mcnelly@granite.mn.org (Jim Mcnelly) Message-ID: <36.2009.2817.0N42A21F@granite.mn.org> Date: Thu, 19 May 94 02:51:00 +0600 Organization: Granite City Connection St. Cloud MN 612-654-8372 As requested, here is my recipe for home composting. Mulching (leaving things in layers) is easier than "piling" organic residues, but there is a place for passive compost piles as well. But for those who desire to make an active, hot, compost pile that is ready for curing in three to four weeks, here is my tried and true formula for cooking hot compost. Active composting is a BATCH process. It differs from passive piles that just sit there or continuous flow systems where stuff is periodically dumped on top of the material already in the bin. 1. PREPARE THE AREA: Avoid walls and fences that can rot and discolor. Stay within reach of the hose. Choose a spot away >from drainage swales and roof overflow. Avoid low spots where water can stand or pond. Leave plenty of room to access with pitch fork and wheel barrow. The area should be from 6'x6' up to 12'x9'. 2. CHOOSE YOUR BIN. Small yards use enclosed plastic, preferably insulated bins. Large yards use larger open air designs without covers. Large doors are better than small ones. Three stage systems are best, but only one, maybe two bins are active at any given time. The three stages are stockpiling, active composting, and curing. Curing piles do not need bins. 3. STOCKPILING: Since active composting is a batch process, it requires a full bin of material and this usually requires stockpiling. Materials easy to store include leaves, wood mulch, pine needles and cones, old compost, and shredded paper. 4. INOCULATING: Active composting is helped by adding old compost or leaf mould as an inoculant. This can range from 10% up to 50% from the curing pile or the still-cooking, last batch. Avoid soil except as a last resort. Use bagged compost or manure if starting for the first time. Packaged inoculants do no harm, and may even help, but are not a substitute for old compost. 5.MIXING and 6. WATERING: Layer your various ingredients OUTSIDE THE BIN, watering each layer as you go. Think "Green and Brown". Add 10% bulky matter like wood chips to keep the pile loose to avoid matting. THEN fork the layers into the bin, mixing as you go, blending wet with dry, watering as necessary. Water like a seed bed, avoiding runoff. The mix should end up 50% moisture like a damp sponge. Now and during the 3 weeks of active composting is the time to add table scraps. Avoid adding lime, it can disturb the natural pH shift and delay decomposition. 7. AERATE: Like any other form of livestock, your "herd" of bacteria needs food, air, and water. You have added food with a balance of carbon and nitrogen, which is the green and brown. You just added water. Now the bacteria need air. Old compost theory suggests that you "turn the pile for aeration; recent studies show that a pile uses up its oxygen in as little as 1/2 hour after turning. Like a barbecue or a fireplace grate, a pile needs ventilation. This is provided through a passive aeration base. Some use brush, stalks, screen on boards, rocks, wood chips, flat aeration pipe, other mechanism to let air infiltrate at the base from outside. The air will rise up due to the convection, chimney effect, of warm air rising. With wood chips added, the pile will self aerate with an aeration grate without turning. Poking the pile from the top down to the base with a piece of rebar or 1/4" rod every 6" will break up mats and provide extra air channels. The pile will begin active composting within 48 hours and cook by itself. You can help the process by mixing at least once after a week, sort of like stirring the coals, adding moisture as necessary. When it is not frozen outside, I make a compost batch every 2 weeks, often using half cooked compost from two weeks previously to mix with the fresh grass clippings. Personally, I bag my grass because I like making and using compost, but letting the clippings lie is a fine way to avoid the effort of active composting. Follow these steps toward batch composting and you will see the pile heat and cook, giving off the steam of life as it decomposes. I think everyone should experience the pleasure of having a compost pile cook well at least *once* in their lives. Two last tips, *underwatering* is the largest single cause of slow composting. Piles in *standing* water is the number one cause of odors. Have fun! Mr Compost~~~ Jim~ McNelly Granite Connection 612-259-0801 jim.mcnelly@granite.mn.org --- * May 19th - What's all this fuss about endangered feces? DF>Problem: I have a "by the book" compost heap that is not generating heat. Sounds like you should compost that book Dave. (g) DF>Contents: Lawn clippings, kitchen scraps, wood chips from my shop(possible problem since they contain redwood, aromatic cedar, and fiberboard, which contains formaldehyde) and plant food (Miracle Grow). You need some old compost as an inoculant first off. Secondly, tell us what proportions of each. My guess is that you are heavy in the wood chips, of which I do not recommend more than 10% unless composting heavy muck like sewage sludge or wet chicken manure. Why did you add the chemical fertilizer and how much? Don't worry about the compounds in the wood products. DF>I keep it wet and cover it with black plastic. The frame is a box (3` x 3`) made by stacking cinder blocks. It is in the north side of the house. I turn it daily with a fork. Turning daily is never recommended. After the initial mix, I don't turn my piles at home at all. In commercial operations, I turn maybe three times in three weeks, twice in the first ten days. Turning lets out the heat. I assume that the two dimensions also mean that the box is 3' deep too, for a total of one cubic yard. Wood chips add structure, but little available carbon since it is still locked up in the wood fiber. Adding wood chips to a compost pile is like giving a thirsty child an eight pound block of ice. Why did you cover it with black plastic? That is like throwing a wet cloth on a fire, halting ventilation. Covering a pile also keeps moisture from coming in. I recommend plastic sides to keep too much air from coming in from the sides where it dries the pile and cools it. Air should come in from the base, like a kettle barbecue or a fireplace grate. It should then rise out the top, with the chimney effect. Keeping the pile covered halts the natural ventilation. DF>Each time I add the lawn clippings it heats up a bit, but it is short lived. Yep. The pile is suffocating, and probably lacking nitrogen >from more green stuff. Mr. Compost~~~ --- * May 8th - I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done. Subject: Is this a compost pile? # Papa Pilgrim writes: JK>Or What? I have a pit in the far corner of my backyard. (great stories deleted) All in all, what I am doing seems to be right and is certainly too much fun. But--is it compost or just rotted stuff? Yo bro! Your pile is a decomposing pile of rotting stuff, not a true composting pile. True compost is made in batches where the organic matter heats up, feeds abundant organisms that like the hot environment, then they cool down. But most people call any old dark organic stuff "compost". I saw a commercial for the Troy Built chipper that claimed that a man can put brush in one end and "compost" comes out the other! Many of my clients in my composting consulting business bought large tub grinders thinking that they "made compost". When they start through the learning curve about making piles, adding moisture, keeping it turned, they gradually come to appreciate true compost. But many people get upset when I tell them that they do not have true compost, so I maybe have to think of a new word that means *only* organic matter made from hot, active piles. But there is no *better or worse* as far as the plants are concerned. Nature does not make piles, she makes thin layers. God does not teach bears and other animals to use pitch forks, carry water, and turn piles. Nature is simple, doing her thing in layers, a bit each year. The worms do the dirty work. Humans seem to *need* to make piles. Once we do, we start composting. When we are done, we put nature's life back to the soil in layers. I say do what works for you. Let it grow. We all should be fruitful! Mr Compost~~~ * May 23rd - Let me see.... Now how does that twit filter work? Subject: Sawdust in compost Michael asks an excellent question: M>What advice can anyone give in using sawdust (oak and birch >primarily) in composting. Can sawdust be the "brown" and grass >the "green" effectively or do I still need to add larger wood >chips for areation purposes? The distinction between carbon as bulking material for aeration and carbon as food was largely lost in the early 1970s when many sludge composting sites failed due to foul odors. Wood chips are not "available" carbon whereas sawdust is. Sawdust tends to compact, however, and too much can "smother" a composting pile. Too little or too much of a good thing can be a problem. Composting is largely a process of finding a balance of various ingredients. I read something about "fuzzy logic" where numerous variables in cooking, brewing, and composting can be managed via computer programs, something akin to master chefs, brewmasters, or composting gurus. I know that it took me many years and trials and errors before I became confident in what and how much of various materials to add. A computer program will rarely tell you *why* it is recommending a particular mix. Back to your question, sawdust varies as to its age and moisture content, but adding around 20% by volume is a lot. I add about 10% wood chips, usually older compost "overs" screened out from previous batches. I add anywhere from 10% to 50% old compost as an inoculant, less if the compost is mature, more if it is fresh. Most piles are deficient in Nitrogen, not carbon. M>Finally, although I do keep sawdust generated from plywood >separate from that generated from hardwood, is it OK to use >plywood sawdust in the compost pile? I wish I could give a pat answer to this question like I can paper products, where I say use them all you please. But not all plywoods are made the same, and I have seen some disturbing levels of formaldehyde which have me a bit wary at the moment about particle and plywood boards. There are so many other sawdust products which are not under question so I suggest that you follow my general rule, which is "when in doubt, keep it out." These sawdusts may be perfectly fine, and I would use them in a mixed waste compost, but in my own garden? Probably not. When I have more conclusive data like I have on the safety of paper, I will vary my position accordingly. Mr Compost~~~ * May 24th - Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Subject: Composting grass Waldek writes: WT>Has anyone had a good experience with composting grass clippings? >When I put it in my compost pile it turns into a sticky mess which takes ages to decompose. I wonder if there is something the grass could be mixed with to help the breakdown process or should I join my neighbours in the weekly routine of hauling bags of the stuff to the curb? Help, help, I'm drowning in hay! I have composted literally hundreds of thousands of tons of grass clippings, and bag my grass at home too. I believe that composting clippings and applying compost to the lawn is better than letting the clippings lie. (although mulching the clippings is better than landfilling any day!) My recipe is the same for home and commercial alike. I have two active batches going and one curing pile. Each week, I stockpile the clippings in a holding bin. The next week, I add the current week's clippings with last week's along with some old compost (10% up to 50%) which is coarse with old wood chips. These materials are layered OUTSIDE the active bin, watered layer by layer. THEN they are forked into the active bin, mixing thoroughly, watering dry areas. My active bin has an aeration mat at the base allowing air to infiltrate from the base. Once the bin is full, since I make *batches* of compost, I "poke" the pile from the top to the base with a steel rod every six inches to help it breathe. Two weeks later, I take half of the older pile and put it into the curing pile with half going into the new batch as the compost inoculant. Once the material in the curing pile is dark and crumbly, I screen it and use the oversize material as a bulking material. Occasionally I add wood chips to help keep the pile loose. I never turn the pile, but splitting it in half to make old and new is a kind of turning. The piles are always sweet smelling. Have fun! Mr Compost~~~ --- * May 23rd - Please let me know if you did not receive this. Don asks, D>I would have to agree with the low yield from table scraps, vegetable peelings, coffee/tea wastes. I must have missed the first part of the post. Are you talking about low volume (total amount of compost) or the low nitrogen value of compost in general, or compost from these ingredients? Let me try to answer all three questions. The volume of finished compost is typically 1/3 of the original volume, more if there is free air space in the original mass. Brush shreds down to about one tenth the original mass, for example. Mass reduction is another matter. Net dry weight loss is typically one third. This is actual nitrogen and carbon conversion to ammonia, heat, and CO2. Most weight loss is from moisture reduction from 80% moisture original matter such as wet grass clippings or fresh garden scraps down to 40% moisture compost. As far as fertilizer values, I have yet to make a true compost that is over 2% nitrogen. Sure, I can have unstable compost which is higher, but a cured compost will not be over 2% due to the inherent biological restraints of the carbon to nitrogen equation which is essential for proper decomposition. Higher carbon ratios will result in lower net nitrogen values. Higher nitrogen in the original feedstock will result in the release of air borne ammonia and other nitrogen compounds and water borne nitrates and nitrites. Compost N values are stable so the can automatically be doubled when compared to chemical nitrogen values, of which 50% or more is lost in the first 24 hours of application. Compost N values also have an accumulated fertility quotient, of which 60% is available the first year, 20% the second, 10% the third, 5% the fourth, and so forth. Chemical N has no accumulated value. As far as the low volume of incoming table scraps as compared to the net demand of they typical yard, I can state with certainty that even if you bag and compost all of your yard trimmings, leaves, and table scraps, your organic matter demand for the yard is still greater. I recommend 1/4" of compost as a top dressing PLUS letting the clippings lie in order to keep a lawn organically sustainable. If you are trying to increase the lawn's humus content, that requires an additional 1/4 inch to make the soil richer. One quarter inch of compost is one cubic yard spread over 1232 square feet. The typical lawn at 3,500 square feet requires three cubic yards to be sustainable (with letting the clippings lie) and twice that amount to build the soil up, usually applied as a top dressing in the spring and fall. If a person was improving the soil *before* the sod goes in, then 32 cubic yards spread 3" deep would be called for. You can see why I believe that it is important to support municipal composting, as the single homestead is hardly capable of generating sufficient compost to keep up. As far as recommending good small composters, I recommend any of the small, plastic, enclosed bins such as the Earth Machine or Green Genie. I recommend round ones over square ones as square bins have cool corners. Table scrap bins should be covered to inhibit rodents and should not have too many openings on the side. I do not recommend open air designs for passive, table scrap bins as they let in too much air, dry out, and let in vermin. Pay no attention to the supposed door underneath to take compost out. They are hard to use and compost does not "flow" so well. Use instead bins which act like "jello molds" which can be lifted off when full and the composting process started new in a different spot. The old pile keeps its shape and will cure just fine in the open air. Remember to use some old compost mixed in with the fresh table scraps. This inoculates it with active bacterial cultures and helps cover it from flies and vermin. For the best home composter, I recommend indoor redworm boxes. Check out Mary Appelhof's book "Worms Eat My Garbage" for tips for the budding vermiculturist. Mr Compost~~~ * April 9th - Man, that lightning sounds clo#A#v!&^#v?##vNO CARRIER Heather writes: HB>My husband and I have been composting for over a year in a bin made from pallets (it is a cube about 3-4 feet on a side). We want to compost mainly so we don't have to throw away our vegetable scraps. For table scraps and vegetables, I recommend smaller enclosed bins. Large open air bins such as you describe are best suited for batch, not continuous flow composting. Your type of bin dries out too quickly, is hard to inoculate with old compost, has corners that stay cool, and is generally unwieldy for small amounts of matter. We generate about a large stock pot worth of vegetable >scraps a week or maybe a little more. We want to be able to add the vegetable scraps to the heap without much trouble, but we have had trouble with a bad smell and flies unless we cover the vegetables completely with dirt (even leaves didn't work). Your loading rate exceeds the microbial capability to decompose the material. You need to begin active composting or throw the scraps into the landfill. Flies are a sign that something is wrong. Passive composting for the loading rate (amount of stinky stuff) you have just doesn't cut it. This is a lot of >trouble - either we have to add a lot of dirt or we have to dig around in the semi-composted mass to try to get the vegetables all covered up. Surely there is an easier way. There is no "easy way" to compost putrescible matter. Think of an "easy way" to bake bread. The easy way is to send the material to a centralized composting site where they practice active composting. Then purchase the finished compost from them. Like you buy bread from a baker. I have seen a lot of >information on composting but I haven't found a solution to our dilemma. I would appreciate any advice. Check out my previous notes on active composting. It really isn't all that difficult once you get the hang of it. I don't turn my piles once they are properly made, mixed, and situated to self-aerate from the base. I let redworms do the curing. Mr Compost~~~ * May 22nd - Composters have heaps of fun. Subject: Mold in Compost Connie writes: CC>I have a considerable amount of powdery white mold or mildew >in my compost pile: not just on the surface, but layered dwon >quite a ways. Does that mean the pile is too wet, dry, lacking in something or other? It is a sign that everything is going well. No worries! Mr Compost~~~ * May 22nd - Buy high, sell low, or something like that David C writes regarding using grass clippings: DC>A more immediate concern is the use of commercial herbicides on lawns.Many of these herbicides will do extreme damage to garden plants.I no longer compost or mulch with grass clippings unless I am confident they are from herbicide-free lawns. Your concern about uncomposted grass clippings with herbicides has some merit, although most of the damage that over-the-counter lawn chemicals can do is past within a few days after spraying. But as far as concern about using grass clippings in the compost pile, your concern has been shown by numerous tests to be unfounded. The composting process, even a passive pile, is, in and of itself, a *treatment* for most common herbicides. By the time the compost is dark and crumbly, the herbicides are not only not a problem, they are virtually undetectable. This is not true, however, for agricultural herbicides, some pesticides, and many commercial chemicals used for spraying trees, especially fungicides. But most of these chemicals are not going to be uptaken by plants, or incorporated into the plant itself. Few organic certification processes regulate the source of the organic matter for composting unless there is a clear pathway of ingestion of chemicals into the food chain. If you start restricting materials for composting because they were produced outside of organic methods, your available feedstocks will become fewer and fewer. I believe that the benefits of organic matter in the soil far outweigh any real or presumed biohazard from residential residual biocides in municipal yard trimmings. If you want *real* environmental concerns to address, try arsenic in treated lumber, salts from road de-icing, motor oil >from crankcases, household batteries in solid waste, lead in wine bottle wrappers, mercury in electric shoes, runoff of lawn fertilizers, nitrates in drinking water, rural burn barrels, on-site dumping, unlined landfills, agricultural nutrient runoff, incinerator emissions, and 1001 other documented environmental concerns. I get tired of people bashing compost and sewage sludges over perceptual biohazards such as lawn chemicals in grass clippings and inks in newsprint. It is difficult enough to permit and operate composting facilities when people we environmentally concerned composters would think would be our allies, the organic gardeners, turn out to be some of our biggest opponents. --- * June 21st - The Universe is over. We can all go home now. Subject: cold composting Mike writes: MN>Hi: Being aware of your wisdom from following your posts to rec.gardens, I imagine you might be able to provide me with some help regarding info on `cold composting'. Well, my propaganda proceeds me or my paid supporters need a raise. But thanks for the kind words anyway. (g) I saw and pursued a reference to a recent Audubon >Magazine article on an interesting gentleman who got his county in an >uproar by bringing in huge amounts of wood waste to his land. He carried >out what was referred to as `cold composting' to speed the breakdown of >the woody material (without any shredding or grinding) by fungal action. >Besides keeping the material moist, are there other tricks? My understanding of the story was that the amounts were not quite so "huge", like great tire stockpiles ready to be hit by lightning, but were fairly normative mulch layers. The "huge" terminology might really more aptly be called "out of the ordinary". Huge, to me, implies thirty foot high stockpiles such as one might find at a sawmill. Even then, people are hardly in an uproar over these "huge" piles. The concern it seems, is the fact that the material is deemed to be "waste" and therefore subject to the NIMBY or NIMTOF (not in my term of office) syndromes. > My personal interest in this is not so grand as this character's; >I've just got whole lot of branch wood and prunings that I am slowly >making a dent in with a 7 hp Mac chipper/shredder. I mean a whole lot-- >a pile 40 feet long by 12 feet wide by 5 feet tall. It's daunting to park >the chipper next to it and wonder how many hundreds of hours it will take >to reduce it all to mulch. Ah yes Grasshopper, Master Po said to Quai Chang Kane, when this stockpile of brush is reduced to humus, then it is time for you to leave. The first point is that nature does not compost; nature mulches. We do not see piles of organic matter in nature, aside from a few notable exceptions of mound building reptiles, nesting birds, rhinos in dung etc. Nature deposits organic matter down in thin layers where it is "cold" composted, if ambient temperatures can be called "cold". Years ago, it was called "sheet" composting, but one rarely sees such a term anymore. But the fact of the matter is that it is the mesophiles, organisms which function from 40F to 120F that are the true decomposers. The thermophiles, those operating over 120F up to the pasteurization temperature of 147F, are lazy sons of guns who thrive on the heat of their cooler brothers, but do little to aid the decomposition process themselves. When a carbon compound is broken biologically, one mole of CO2 and one mole of heat is released. In layers, this heat is dissipated through convection. In piles, this heat is retained due to the self-insulating properties of the composting mass. It seems that the best temperatures for decomposing carbon, which wood mulch represents, are in the 110F-120F range. Much of this carbon is bound by cellulose which is highly resistant to decay. The best means of attacking cellulose, aside from hiring termites, is to enlist the aid of fungi. This is what termites actually do in their gut, and is what the gentleman referenced in the Audubon report is also doing. I would suggest adding around 10% old compost to the wood mulch to assist the inoculation process so that the decomposition can proceed in earnest. Keeping it moist as you note is also essential. The real question is whether or not the organic matter is being processed for a beneficial use or if it is being "disposed on land". If the person is simply stockpiling in order to garner "waste tipping fees" with no plan for the ultimate beneficial use of the mulch or resultant decomposed organic matter, then I would challenge the plan, just as I would stockpiling tires. The greater crime is sending organic matter to the landfill where it serves no beneficial use at all. Even worse, it decomposes into explosive methane, merges with toxic leachate, shrinks the landfill causing cracking in the clay cap, and benefits no soils at all. So even a farmer making an extra buck spreading wood mulch is better than the landfill alternative. Mr Compost~~~ Jim~ McNelly Granite Connection 612-259-0801 jim.mcnelly@granite.mn.org --- * June 22nd - The dinosaurs quit while they were ahead. ------------------============<>=============----------------- Granite City Connection (612) 259-0801 Email: jim.mcnelly@granite.mn.org (Jim Mcnelly) ------------------============<>=============-----------------